After an intensive week of training at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Jeanne and I returned to yet more training at the Las Cruces NM BLM office.  This included safety, UTV, diversity, NEPA, CPR, and various other trainings associated with  various other acronyms.  Additionally, we have gone out on a few range assessment excursions to scout for collection sites and to assist in plant ID for presence and absence  of plant species.   

We’re used to praying for rain in Southern New Mexico, and even though it’s been a sporadically wet spring, the summer is hot and dry no matter how you cut it, and the plants are usually accordingly sad and crispy this time of year.  As a result, our seed collecting activities have been limited to scouting populations using forensic botany. 

We have found excellent candidate populations of Bouteloua gracilis, Ipomopsis longiflora, Bouteloua curtipendula, Thymaphylla acerosa, Sporobolus airoides, Muhlenbergia arenacea (Sand Muhly), M. porteri (Bush Muhly),  and Sporobolus flexuosus.  Much to my surprise, we have also found a big, happy candidate population of Pleuraphis jamesii (James’ Gallleta grass).  I had been unaware that it occurred this far south, (usually what we find around here is the rather closely related Pleuraphis mutica “Tobosa grass”).  I had my doubts about finding adequate populations of Setaria leucopila because, although fairly common, I have never seen it in any great density.   Sure enough, though, we found a population that shall do nicely for an SOS collection.  Oh me of little faith….

 We have found a lovely population of Ipomopsis longiflora, but I’m afraid there will be some strategizing necessary since our reconnaissance indicates that the fruit capsules explosively dehisce almost immediately upon maturation.  Jeanne, my co-intern, called up a contact that she’d worked with on a restoration project involving a super rare species of Ipomopsis endemic to New Mexico (I. espiritus-sanctus, “Holy Ghost Ipomopsis) to get some information on how to collect seeds.  His suggestion was to bag the plant and catch the seeds that way.  I am hoping we don’t have to go this route for seed collection, but time will tell.

We have had luck finding Aristida purpurea (purple threeawn) from geographic regions not yet collected, but my mentor is after specific varieties (var. perplexa and var. longiseta).  However, thus far we have not found populations of either variety in sufficient quantity for collection.  But we have found good populations for Aristida pansa which may make for a viable substitution.

Anyway, we’ve seen a lot of beautiful but stark New Mexico landscapes.  I do love working in these open lands where there may be no signs of humanity for miles and miles, except for maybe the infamous spaceport in the northern part of the county. 

Overall, I have been impressed by the diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints in the Las Cruces field office.  And yet, there definitely seems to be a positive and generally fun work environment here.  I hope next time I update y’all, there will be a lot more  ‘nitty gritty’ plant collections to report on (may the skies open up on us with delicious rain…).  In the meantime, please enjoy some random photos of our adventures and some cool plants we’ve found along the way! 

David Morin

Las Cruces Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

 

Coryphantha longispina.  A poor photo of a cute cactus.

I keyed this critter to H. microcephalum, an unusual DYC found in a dry stock tank.

Creosote (Larrea tridentata) anyone?  We’ve got it; seemingly as far as the eye can see.  This is hotter than it looks.  Trust me.

 

Rangeland assessment team hard at work.  The Rio Grande valley is in the distance…

We shall be collecting from this site, provided A) we get rain and B) we can find a reasonable way to harvest the seeds.

Oryx scat.  I did see some oryx, but was too slow with the camera.  Hence, I’ll leave you with a photo of the next best thing.

My advisor, P. J. Alexander overlooking tank training grounds at the McGregor allotment.  The military gets to do training on this allotment for some reason. This is as good a photo as I’ll ever get of Patrick.  He’s odd about getting his picture taken.  I did, however, get his blessing to share this photo….

Mostly crispy Sporobolus airoides.  When the rains come, this will be a target collection site.

Penstemon ambiguus.  A very cool, shrubbish, and unusually low dwelling Penstemon in NM.  There are two like that that I know of, of about 70 plus Penstemon species in the state.

 

A cool rubiacid from the coffee family!  And one that I’ve rarely seen in flower.  Rubiaceae is a huge tropical family, but with few taxa in the deserts of the southwestern US.  Also, a bit of Physaria fendleri, a hip yellow flowered mustard.